County Greater London Created 1974 (1974) European Parliament constituency London Number of members 1 Party Conservative Party | Electorate 82,010 (May 2015) Created from East Surrey Member of parliament Chris Philp Replaced by East Surrey | |
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Croydon South is a United Kingdom parliamentary constituency created in 1974 represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament since 2015 by Chris Philp, a Conservative.
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Political history
In 1974 a Croydon South constituency created in 1950 was renamed Croydon Central and the current Croydon South was created out of northernmost parts of East Surrey, which since 1965 had joined Greater London.
The constituency has had three Conservative MPs. Sir William Clark, who had represented East Surrey in the previous Parliament, won the election in February 1974, and served until 1992 when he was succeeded by Richard Ottaway. In October 2012, Ottaway stated his intention to stand down at the next election and was succeeded by Chris Philp in May 2015 . Boundary changes have been minor and the 2015 result made the seat the 145th safest of the Conservative Party's 331 seats by percentage of majority.
Constituency profile
Croydon South consists overwhelmingly of affluent suburbia, including a significant minority of large houses with gardens on the North Downs escarpment. It has many well-to-do businesspeople taking advantage of the fast commuter trains to the City and Gatwick airport, plus a significant proportion of retired people.
The village-like Selsdon - one of the few places in the seat where transport links are poor - has a place on the political map having spawned the phrase 'Selsdon Man', its swing and voters first seen as an ideal bellwether for the national swing by the Conservative Party; the Purley Way, which runs mainly through Waddon, has become home to large retail estates for out-of-town shopping and leisure, the latter area being the sole Labour ward in the constituency — one of its councillors, Andrew Pelling, the former Conservative MP for Croydon Central, having defected to the Labour Party.
At the southern end of the constituency, Coulsdon has much in common with the residual county of Surrey of which it was a more intrinsically associated part until 1965 as it was excluded from Croydon County Borough on the county borough's creation in 1889.